It's been more than two decades since Spartina won the National Book Award and was acclaimed by critics as being "possibly the best American novel ... since The Old Man and the Sea" (New York Times Book Review), but in this extraordinary sequel barely any time has passed in John Casey's magical landscape of Rhode Island salt ponds and marshes. Elsie Buttrick, prodigal daughter of the moneyed set who are gradually taking over the coastline of Sawtooth Point, has given birth to Rose, the daughter of her passionate affair with Dick Pierce—a fisherman and the love of Elsie's life, who also happens to live practically next door with his wife May and their children. But as wary and uncomfortable as Elsie is in their small community, Rose grows up to become the unofficial adopted daughter and little sister to half the town, steering everyone in her orbit toward unexpected relationships.

"Beautiful and elegiac.... [This] bit of a world is complete unto itself, with its own force fields, its own variations off true north, its own ways of tilting into alignment."—NYTBR